Masks return as Council targets vaccine uptake to protect District's vulnerable

Derry City and Strabane District Council members have urged council to use its social media platforms to promote winter immunisation across the district.

Earlier this week the Western Trust has announced a face mask requirement for visitors, staff and, patients at health care facilities, such as emergency rooms, due to increased levels of flu and others illnesses, and at December’s Health and Community Committee meeting, chair and Sinn Féin councillor, Aisling Hutton, said cases of the flu were “only going to get worse over the Christmas break”.

She asked Officers to support winter planning, including immunisation against the flu and other diseases, by integrating messaging into council’s “comms plan”.

DUP alderman Niree McMorris said she had spoke with several health workers and was told that immunisation rates in the city were “way, way down”, in comparison to other areas in Northern Ireland and the UK.

“They were basically saying that for the first time ever we no longer have herd immunity, which is really, really concerning,” Alderman McMorris added.

“We were talking about winter and flu strains, but we have conditions like meningitis which are very preventable, which are life-threatening.

“We have a case where people are not bringing their children forward to get all the different vaccinations that they can get, so I was just thinking around social media and whatever kind of message that we can get out there.

“This is something that is really prevalent in our communities at the moment. It is so important that we immunise our children, immunise ourselves, and make sure that anything that can be avoided is avoided.

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“We have a lot of vulnerable people in our communities and we need to be making sure that carers are getting immunised, because they could be taking things in to older and vulnerable people.”